Dog Paw

Dog Paw combines the best of modern music tech with physical instrument design.

Dog Paw’s keys combine the weight of a piano key with the vibrato- and pressure-driven expression of a string instrument. Your playing drives a sound engine on the instrument built especially to bring the expressive keys to life. The instrument can be played “standalone” with just a set of headphones.

Dog Paw is also widely compatible with your existing setup. It boasts MIDI/MPE, CV in/out, sustain/expression pedal, audio in/out, USB, and Ethernet. Control your favorite DAW, or add a new level of expression to your modular rig.

Dog Paw’s versatile grid layout means musicians can play in a way that works with how they play music. Guitarists will find the fretboard layout intuitive. Music theory jocks can experiment with isomorphic note arrangements. And musicians of all skill levels can turn on scale mode to eliminate “wrong” notes or shred without reservations.

Still want more out of your instrument? Dog Paw has a developer kit that gives you access to the full power of its Raspberry Pi 5. Build apps that run directly on the device, letting you control every aspect of your instrument.

The Dog Paw has two key features that combine for a unique playing experience.

1. Our weighted keys give the tactile feedback of an acoustic instrument that is critical to natural, consistent playing. The preeminence of weighted keyboards over their unweighted counterparts demonstrates the value of this feedback. Our keys also respond to left and right movement, enabling easy and natural vibrato that is instantly familiar to string instrument players. These keys sit in a grid, bringing this expression and feedback to the growing world of grid instruments, popular for their natural software interaction and symmetry.

2. Every Dog Paw runs a powerful internal computer. For a start, this means you can directly run our audio engine to your speakers, and don’t need any other gear to start playing. We’re doubling down on this by building an app store, meaning anyone can build or install community-built apps to completely change how their instrument behaves. We envision teachers connecting over the internet to their students’ instruments, triggering the LEDs under their student’s keys as they demonstrate a riff. Or producers sharing samples on the fly at a DJ convention. Or a singer pulling up the chords to their favorite Beatles song at their local jam. We expect some of the most compelling apps are things we wouldn’t even think of ourselves.

Music technology and AI today are raising new questions about what it means to play, learn, and create music. We don’t have all of the answers yet. But we’re certain that searching for those answers will involve experimentation at the intersection between the wildest new capabilities and the timeless art of live expression.

We hope Dog Paw can help musicians discover new ways to make music while holding onto the natural expression that has been the staple of instruments for millennia.